Powerful
by MarionetteInMay
Summary: She does it once every two weeks, walks into a slave center and brings out one of the poor things unlucky enough to have been sold into this work. Today her target was someone foulmouthed and abrasive but defiant and fiery. Slavestuck, one-shot, implied Katnep.


Slave centers were built with two sectors in mind. First was the sector that had risen to infamy with the concept of slavery—the bidding sector. People who understood anything about slavery knew of this sector, where slaves would be lined up and people would compete for the highest price, a single winner from a possibly pointless challenge. It was usually filled with the cheapest and most expensive slaves, never anything in-between. The greenhorns started out their "careers" there, and people with the fittest or the smartest or the cutest trophies could make a better profit off a bid then they could anywhere else.

The other half of the building people learned of either once they reached slave centers or a little while before, because it was a less popular destination, called the trading sector. Rather than any official sell off a poor creature with a bidding competition, people could come here and buy slaves from one another, or even barter with slaves of their own. It wasn't unheard of to buy someone's first from the second sector, but it was mostly occupied by people who knew midbloods and work slaves were the better buy—the more experienced traders, basically.

For Nepeta, both sectors were disgusting, but she kept to the trade sector because it was much easier to get away with her work, less personnel watching and less damage control to do. She was there now; watching these rich aristocratic bastards walk along followed by miserable-faced trolls all dolled up with low necklines and pulled back hair to show off their shock collars attached to short gray leashes. It was a shame she could only take one away from this life at a time, but more than one had resulted in her second recapture and the poor triad's first recapture before their escape had even begun.

For her, though, the worst part was that these rooms looked so clean and _classy, _a tribute to aristocrats and their cruel practices. Food and drink were spread out all over, glasses of violet liquids and small sliced up cuts of meat, cooked to perfection. The place was decked out in gorgeous art and elaborate tapestries. Some slaves who have yet to be bought at the bidding sector could be seen cleaning up the mess the nobility left behind. It might as well have been the great Queen's throneroom. She kept herself from wrinkling her nose at the thought.

Her eyes flicked around as she attempted to select a target, expression set to curious and appraising in order to ward off any looks, and whenever she met anyone's eye she gave a faint smile before going back to her analysis, all the while carefully avoiding swallowing a pill held precariously between pressed lips. She tried tokeep herself from twitching with agitation. This always gave her so much more energy then she needed, from entering to leaving, but it wasn't bad. No, not at all. _Him, her, maybe that one over there, maybe her, him, perhaps he would be the best for today_… Selection was always like this, where she couldn't decide immediately. That was the "bad thing." Faces she wanted to see were absent. Trolls of all shapes and kinds and colors littered the halls and the rooms, and as she stood propped up against the wall, glancing at slave and master while trying to keep the sympathy swelling in her heart actually in her heart, her decision on who to take would end with endless apologies to everyone else because that was about all she could do.

A shout of a few vulgarities followed by a screech drew her attention away. A young scruffy-haired troll (no older than her, certainly not a full adult) was clutching at his neck with scarred fingers, and a focus on his collar and the bright red light blinking there told her he was being shocked. His teeth were gritted together, and she was sure he was cursing. The shock ended, and he gasped for breath. Someone next to him—his owner—scolded him, said something about his impudence and his need to keep his tongue held, and the boy dropped his glare to his feet before going back to observing his surroundings, the entire matter over in seconds now that the owner had won. He caught Nepeta's eye and, under the knowledge that his owner wasn't watching, snarled at her, eyes alive with spite despite the sleepless bags beneath them, practically daring her to approach and attempt to buy him.

She stared blankly in response, surprised she was met with such hostility just by looking. Many slaves were miserable, and he was no different, but he had a spirit even she hadn't managed in her five times as a slave herself, and that she hadn't seen in a very long time. She didn't want that spirit to be crushed by a cruel life like this.

She had decided on her target.

Pulling her coat hood over her head and horns, she kept her eyes trailed on him. All she had to do was wait patiently. For her, this process was like hunting. It took deciding a target, stalking downwind, and then striking quickly and efficiently and then going home with pride in the success. She slowly shuffled along to keep her target in sight, until he was in a secluded enough area that she was sure she could make this work.

Making a little jump as she detached herself from the wall, she slipped through the crowd, picking up a drink from a nearby table and subtly taking a small sip and spitting the pill into it as she went. Nepeta looked like a young'un and she knew it. Small-framed, lithe, eyes yet to gain any olive hue, she looked maybe a little younger than her actual age. Thus, she couldn't hold drinks to look older—it made her look like a kid trying to hard. So she liked to opt for just looking like a respectful teenager instead. "Hello, sir," she smiled sweetly, offering him the drink. "I saw you're trouble earlier with him." She tilted her head in the direction of the scruffy slave-boy, who was currently staring at her, half in shock that she actually approached them after his scowling at her earlier and half in loathing for the same reason. "I take it he's too much trouble so you're pushing him off on someone else?" The shock disappeared and it was quite obvious he hated her. She wanted to shoot him an apologetic look, but the owner was watching and, as sorry was she felt, it wasn't worth the risk.

"That would be the case, yes. No matter how often he's shocked he tends to succumb to impulse. Very mouthy, that one." He replied, taking a drink. "It would be much easier to just cull him, but I prefer profit over dead bodies, and to the right person he's a decent decoration."

Nepeta nodded as if she understood completely, even though she never really would. "My group specializes in training slaves, you know. We profit from making them skilled and obedient then selling them back and getting others. I'd be willing to take him off your hands if you'd like."

"Your group," he repeated to her, like it didn't make sense.

"Yup! A little collection of traders. We've found it's a good way to make money, don't you think?"

"I suppose. And you think you could handle him?"

She kept on her radiating smile and giggled, her own hatred at this troll welling up. _Handling_ like a disobedient pet. You stupid sack of shit. "Of course! We've worked with worse than mouthy wrigglers!" The glare he was giving her was almost burning into her skin. She had really pissed him off with that comment. She glanced over at him, smirking with as much condescension as she could manage, being very careful not to react to the hint of suspicion in his gaze.

Well, at least he was smart.

The man seemed to approve of what she said, and he gave her a favorable smile. "I'm willing to offer him to you, then. What are you willing to pay?"

She shook her head with an apologetic look. "I'm only a scout. The one you're looking for is in the bidding sector. I'll take you to him!"

Mr. Master insisted on leading the way, which was stupid considering she would have been the one to know where the negotiator is if such a person every existed, but she went with it because there's no use in annoying him and skipped happily next to scruffy slave boy, who kept sending suspicious glances her way. The one time she opted to meet his eye, he just mouthed _go away_, to which she mouthed a _no_ with a little playful smile in response, and blinked out a quick sorry. More suspicion flashed in his eyes from that, but he only grumbled to himself.

She was close enough to read the tag hanging from his collar: _Karkat Vantas, Off-Spectrum_. She remembered her own tag for a minute, _Nepeta Leijon, Olive_, and did a double-take, rereading the puzzling label. How did anyone have a blood color off the spectrum?

Finally the guy seemed to down the drink in a couple gulps, and soon after their long walk down the hallway seemed to get slower and slower, until he finally just collapsed altogether, his glass bouncing harmlessly off the plush carpet. Just before his face hit the ground, she caught him like the sweet little saint she was, and dragged his back up so he was supported. It wasn't made to knock anyone out, more a weakening and hallucinogen kind of drug, complete with a little sopor slime from a recuperacoon, which a kinder master with an unfortunate trade once told her is actually effective in distorting things around you. In small doses, she doubted it was, so including it in anything was more for effect.

"Sir? Are you okay?" she propped him up and quickly slipped the key to Karkat's collar out of his pocket, along with the paper certifying him as the guy who owned the off-spectrum blood slave, placing it in her own, and he mumbled something incoherently in a delayed response to her question. "Sir? What happened?" Her voice carried out and reached other holders, who watched the spectacle with dull disinterest. "You, slave-boy. Help me take him to an official?"

"That doesn't happen naturally," Karkat said instead, not moving. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Cursing isn't nice. Certainly not how you make furiends" She avoided his question, still smiling in an attempt to stay upbeat and keep up appearances. Longer eyes were on her, less time before someone recognized her as the slave girl who's escaped five times. That would make everything needlessly complicated.

"Neither is drugging. Who are you?"

"Nepeta." She replied, more quietly, urgently. If the name of a relentless escapee like her rang any bells to him, he didn't show it, just began helping her half-drag half-lead the "poor chap" to someone on staff, in this case a seadweller man with an odd stutter and a scarf that screamed "pretentious."

"I think he's a bit fatigued," she explained. "Might be sick, I'm not really sure."

"We'll get him to a medic facility or somethin'. Can't promise he'll be fine, but you never can." The seadweller replied, frowning with disapproval at the tired and delirious troll currently being taken off. "That one yours?"

"I just finished the transaction." She replied, stepping in front of Karkat so the staff guy couldn't see the look he was giving her, and showed the paper. Not the contents, just the folded up envelope with the seal putting her as the owner.

"How convenient for you." He raised an eyebrow. "What did you say your name and blood were?"

"Lopeur Arsenc," she replied immediately. "Cobalt blood."

"Right, Miss Arsenc. I see not a shade of blue on you," he commented, looking over her black hoodie and long black pants. Not a shade of anything on her but black.

"I prefer gray," she shrugged. "May I please go? I have a very protective moirail who'll get angry if I leave him waiting."

"Fine, fine, off with both of you," the seadweller dismissed them with a wave of his hand. "Good luck with the kid, saw him causin' a ruckus earlier."

She laughed, complete false but a bright tinkly laugh all the same. "I'll do my best. Come along, slave-boy." She began bouncing off, almost dragging Karkat with her, the hallway that would lead to the bidding sector. Bidding sectors had lots of crowds that made it easy to hide out until they could manage to leave unseen, and so that's where she would stay.

"Where are we going." Karkat questioned in a hushed voice, halting the minute they were out of hearing range of anyone important. "Why did you drug him. Why did you take my certificate. Why did you tell that purple-blood you had already bought—completed a transaction. Is your name Nepeta or Lopeur. What the fuck are you doing. Are you going to answer any of my questions." Funny, none of his questions sounded like questions.

She turned to face him, and said as low as she could, "I'm sorry this is purrplexing. I'm actually Nepeta, I purromise. Just keep with me and efurything will be fine, okay? Please trust me, I'm helping."

"You a completely batshit broad, you know that? Down at the bottom of the sanity pole, an asylum would consider you a lost cause, rabid animals run in fear of a pissant like you—" He broke off, carefully examining her pleading expression. "Why should I trust you?"

She grinned. "Ever see a hunt, Karkitten?"

"Do I look like a fucking hunter to you? No, I've never seen a fucking hunt, I don't hunt, the most hunting I've done is set a few traps to catch a bit of extra meat. And don't call me that, batshit woman. I'm no fucking kitten"

"What I'm doing now is a whole lot like a hunt!"

Her stared at her like she was crazy. "So you're going to take me to your hive and make me into soup? You and this negotiator guy?" His voice was blunt.

"Close enough! Now let's go, we need to get through the bidding sector!" She set off with at a brisk pace, one she soon learned Karkat had to struggle to keep up with. She turned back to him. "Are you okay?"

"Purrfect." He was sure to put a lot of sarcasm there, but Nepeta only giggled.

"Wow, you really are mouthy. I bet you're as much of a pawful as they said."

He was clear off-put by her cheerful reaction to it—but it was funny! "I'm tired as shit and my throat feels like it's burning in the depths of hell, let's just get this '_hunt_' over with."

"Right this way." She was almost sure he returned her smile, but he just scowled and glared at a troll who happened to pass by.

They crossed through a few more trading rooms, Nepeta keeping her head high and her pace slow enough to accommodate Karkat while still looking like she was in charge. They reached the door to the bidding sector, and just beyond she could hear a clamoring over some poor thing that was currently being looked over by everyone. Sounded like a highblood. She might have been able to tell if someone wasn't blocking her way. "State name and blood color."

She resisted scowling. "Lopeur Arsenc, cobalt." The guard nodded and allowed her and Karkat through. She led the little slave-boy by the stage—it was in fact a higherblood on the stage, for those curious—and through to an old exit that led to a deadend. "Stay quiet," she advised her companion. By there, there was an old ladder that would lead to the rafters above, and they could stay up there until she could find a pathway out.

Karkat followed her, grumbling curses all the way, until both were settled down with a prime view of the bidding. Yay for them. "… So why the fuck are we up here? Are you waiting for an opportunity to push me down and kill me and then make me into that aforementioned soup?"

"You saw that staff guy earlier, right? The seadweller?" she said, thinking back. "He doesn't trust me. 'It's awfully convenient' whatefur." She made a face that mimicked his indifferent condescension earlier. "There's a fifty-fifty chance he's waiting at the entrance for us, especially because I didn't just knock out that one guy out so he could spill something, and I can't risk that. It's best to stay up here and wait for when they begin clearing owners and traders out and we'll just leave in that crowd. It'll take a few hours before that happens, but I think we'll be all right."

He watched her warily. "So this is a regular thing for you," he observed. "You come along, drug some guy dragging along a slave, and then leave with them, then what?"

"Drugging isn't always my tactic," she replied with a small laugh. "It just happened to be today's. After this is over, you go on to do whatever you want."

He needed a minute to let that sink in. "So you're going to let me go?"

"If I wasn't, I wouldn't have taken the key to your collar." Before he could ask more questions, especially the abhorrent _why would you do something this stupid_, she changed the subject. "Efur been in a bidding before?"

"Once, when I was around four sweeps. First and only, and my start. You?"

"Six times, less often as I got older."

He fixed her with that dark, sarcastic gaze. "You look like you're maybe six and half sweeps, I highly doubt you're a huge veteran."

"I'm seven and half, thanks." She giggled at being so defensive over her age. Slaves weren't born, they were made. Nepeta's work started at two sweeps. She could hardly remember life before it. She remembered her lusus, Pounce de Leon, who taught her the basics of hunting, but not much else.

"Oh yeah, another sweep, huge addition to your slave-girl cred, let me tell you." Silence followed before Karkat spoke again. "I've heard your name before, you know. Sometimes other slaves'll talk about you. Apparently you've gotten out more than once."

"Five times," Nepeta confirmed, with a little pride.

"Why bother coming back?" There it was, _that_ question. Who says she needed a reason? "This place is hell. No one cares about you, they all think you're fucking toys in a big game of 'fuck anyone unlucky enough to get caught. Hope you stay alive!' It's pure awful compressed into a single concept. You should be doing everything you can to avoid getting caught again, not jumping back into the heart of this sorry excuse for a…" He paused, and then furious disbelief completely consumed his expression. Something must have shown on her face that he didn't like. "Oh, I cannot fucking believe you! Are you fucking serious?! Actually serious!?"

She was caught off guard by that. "… What?" was all she could say dumbly.

"You're an _addict_," he accused. "I can see it on your face! You're fucking addicted to coming to these trade centers and freeing one poor soul, and you're addicted to getting caught and getting out. You really are batshit, aren't you? A viably insane little slave girl. Why? Why would you ever be addicted to something like that? What kind of joy can you get out of it?"

Her eyes were wide, but something in her told her it was truth. "… Who knows," she said softly. "Pawhaps I'm looking for the ones I lost during the recaptures."

"Well saving me isn't going to help that end," Karkat pointed out. Nepeta hummed in agreement, and they settled in and tried not to watch the biddings too closely.

After that conversation, they settled into basic conversation while the hours rolled on. Karkat went into the job at four sweeps, having been caught and sold as a random target when his area was raided by traders who needed a quick buck. "Whole life's been run by luck, it's all shit," he commented. He said he liked romcoms and romance novels, whenever he found a way to sneak peeks at either. He quickly added no one, not even the great savior (spoken mockingly) was allowed to say any shit about it. He told a couple stories of the various people he'd been sold off too, some happy (like when his first squeakbeast trap worked) and some not (a tale of a really bad beating after a fuck-up of his). He held off on telling her about his off-spectrum label, but he did mention it was pretty much his "selling point," complete with a roll of his eyes.

He was foul-mouthed and abrasive and misanthropic and kind of an ass, but Nepeta couldn't help but laugh at the things he said. She could see the good in him so easily, like all that anger was just a thin film that hardly distorted the guy inside. He turned out to be incredibly easy to talk to and she hadn't felt so relaxed talking to someone in a very long time, and she was pretty sure she was having a somewhat similar effect of him, because a couple times she got a flash of a smile out of that bitter face and once she got a laugh (she was pretty sure).

She wondered what he would do once they got out, where he would go. She was almost scared to ask.

"So the moirail and the negotiator guy," Karkat prompted. "Are they the same person, assuming you didn't make them both up?"

"Negotiator doesn't exist. I do have a meowrail, but he wouldn't appurrrove of me coming in and freeing slaves like this, so I don't tell him. He's a good guy, though. Never had a slave in his life, and he's got navy blood! He's so purrtective of the people he cares about sometimes it's almost stifling." He was one of the reasons she couldn't afford recapture—if she didn't come home, he would know what happened and he would never find her again and the hurt that would come with that for both of them… the thought made her stomach clench.

Rather than keep thinking about it, she balanced herself on the rafter. "Everyone's going to be clearing out soon, we should go." And she began making her way towards the ladder.

Once they were back safely on the ground, Karkat said, very quietly, "Hey, Nepeta? Thanks. A lot. I don't know why you would pick a mouthy useless fuck like me to free, but thanks for it. Even if you're an insane bitch addicted to this kind of life."

Nepeta smiled softly at him, and pulled him in to a hug so quickly she could feel him stumble with the sudden movement. He stiffened considerably at it, which was cute in a way. "You're not a useless fuck, don't worry. Nobody's useless. Efuryone can do something." She pulled back, locked eyes with him, and gave him the brightest beam she could. "Just wait 'till you're furee and that collar is gone, then you'll know the life and you definitely won't feel like a useless fuck then!" Another one of those quick smiles showed on his face.

They joined the groups of ladies and gents as they began clearing out, Karkat once again being led around by his leash held by a high-headed Nepeta. The halls they were led through were just as ornate as any of the trading rooms, almost annoyingly so.

When she glanced back at Karkat, she noted that despite the miserable face he looked incredibly excited to leave. And, to be honest, she could feel excitement tingling in her bones as well. She always felt overjoyed after a success, but this time it felt like more, like better than just success.

At least, it did until someone tugged her and Karkat out of the crowd.

She was shoved into a room and collar was snapped around her neck. She heard the snap and knew it. _No, no, no no no no nononono…_ Absolute terror filled her entire body. The seadweller from earlier was in the room with her. "So Ms. Leijon, this will be your sixth time with a collar, according to files. Is that correct?" Her blood ran cold at the mention of her name.

"What the hell?!" Karkat snapped, kicking at the indigo blood who was trying to keep from hurting anyone. "Let me go, you rotten shit-for-think-pan bastards! Hey!"

"Take him to a cell, we can sell him off tomorrow." Nepeta tried to protest, but her attempt at standing led to white-hot electricity surging through her veins. She screeched, having forgotten for a while what it felt like to be shocked. The fog of pain and the bright red dots cleared, it was only her and the scarf-clad staff member.

"Look, chickie," he said, and suddenly he looked really tired, "All I need right now are the certificate and the key to the boy's collar, and then everyone can walk away from this, okay? Do ya mind?"

"Yes," she choked out a less than terrifying growl.

He frowned at her. "You'll be searched and sold off no matter what happens, just like every other time. Don't think you haven't earned a rep among slave owners, too? I'm just askin' that we do this without so much of a problem. Do you want a please?"

"I want this goddamn collar off and I want Karkat back here and I want to fucking leave! What good will a please do me?!" She shouted at him.

Although he looked irritated, he didn't activate her collar or really do anything, just sat there watching her ragged breathing and hateful stare. Finally, he just shrugged. "Sorry, Nep. We may not deal with corpses here, but that just means if I don't get you settled in a cell within the next ten minutes, they'll just take me by the river for the reapin' and dump my dead body there. Came from water for life, returnin' to it in death all that stupid shit. It's a dangerous business and I need my job done if I want to keep my life, and escaped slaves tryin' to take more slaves don't exactly count as 'getting my job done.' So either you give me the key and the certificate or I get some guy take it for you. You get sold tomorrow as a top-class escape artist and your friend—Karkat, you said?—will get sold as a mutant and then life will continue. What's your choice?"

* * *

"I'm sorry." She said again. It was all she'd said for the past hour, since they'd been shoved in cells. The seadweller, whose name she'd finally learned to be Ampora, allowed her request to be placed in the cell next to Karkat, because he didn't really give a shit and because he saw she did want to apologize. "I'm really sorry." Tears had been threatening to spill but nothing ever came, her stomach said puke she never did. _Sorry, sorry, sorry... _Sorry to Karkat, sorry to her moirail who she couldn't go home to, sorry to everyone she failed with this,_ sorry sorry sorry I'm so sorry..._

"So you've said." She was usually good at seeing what people were thinking, even if she ignored it, but this time she couldn't read him at all. His voice was flat and she couldn't see his face.

"I'm so sorry I got your hopes up."

A sleepy troll jeered at her in an attempt to quiet her, and she hissed back. Stupid asshole said nothing after that.

"… You said this was a hunt, right?" Karkat said. "Sometimes you snatch the fucker before anything can happen, and sometimes the prey escapes. That's how hunting works." You also rely on it for living. "Everything's got a risk and sometimes the risk wins. Luck of the draw."

"That doesn't make it any worse when you fail," Nepeta replied. "I'm sorry."

"You tell me sorry one more time and I might just break out of here to beat all this fucking sorry out of you. I'll go on a rage and everyone in here can watch my glorious descent into insanity while I scream 'no more sorry' over and over like a fucking incensed ogre. Do you want that?" At that she laughed, couldn't help it. "I'm serious, enough with this apologetic bullshit. You want to be so fucking sorry then make it up to me by living and not being a fucking thrill-addicted bitch, got it?" She nodded, an action lost between walls, and giggled softly to herself.

If there was a bright side, it was that Nepeta's bid the next night had been higher than she had ever seen it.

* * *

"Wow." Terezi stated, because she really didn't seem to have any words. She was a teal-blood slave who specialized in tracking things by scent, so she and Nepeta had been sold as a hunter duo, catching lusii in the wild to be sold as meat and skin. "I never thought you had stories like that, cattroll." Nepeta herself nodded, the memory still fresh despite passing time.

"It sounds a whole lot like you liked him." Terezi had a teasing shark's grin, trying to lift up spirits. "Was that the case?"

Nepeta couldn't help but smile a sad smile at the thought of them hanging out on the raftors. "I don't think I ever had the chance to."

Already escape plans were running through her mind, maybe a plan to find him, maybe a plan to find the others she had lost during her other recaptures. She remembered clearly who it was he'd been sold to—his bidding had been just before hers. She couldn't help it. Always, she felt this was what she needed to do and she still wanted to free as many as she could, including those whose hopes of freedom came crashing down.

Addiction was a powerful thing, after all.

* * *

**A/N- **A quick note on Nepeta's alias, Lopeur Arsenc, Lopeur comes from an old Finnish way to say lion/leo ("_Jalopeura_") and it also sounds like "low purr" which I really like, and then Arsenc comes from her handle.

R&R would be lovely! Thanks for reading!


End file.
